CSDMS 2016 annual meeting poster StephanieHiggins

From CSDMS
Presentation provided during SEN - CSDMS annual meeting 2016

Impacts of River Linking on Sediment Transport to Indian Deltas

Stephanie Higgins, University of Colorado Boulder Boulder Colorado, United States. stephanie.higgins@colorado.edu
Irina Overeem, University of Colorado Boulder Boulder Colorado, United States. irina.overeem@colorado.edu
James Syvitski, University of Colorado Boulder Boulder Colorado, United States. james.syvitski@colorado.edu

Abstract:

In response to water scarcity and a growing population, the Indian government has begun a project to link India’s largest rivers together in the most ambitious water diversion scheme ever proposed. The Indian Rivers Interlink project has been under consideration since 1980, but the plan has new momentum since a 2012 Supreme Court decision ordered the project to move forward. The first link was completed in Sep. 2015, transferring water from the Godavari to the Krishna River. If the interlinking project is fully realized, fourteen canals will ultimately divert water from tributaries of the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers to areas in the west, where fresh water is needed for irrigation. Additional canals would transport the water more than 1000 km south to the southern tip of the Indian subcontinent. Here, we investigate the impacts of the proposed diversions on water and sediment transport to the Ganges-Brahmaputra, Mahanadi, Godavari, Krishna, and Kaveri river deltas. We map the changing river network and all proposed new nodes and connections. Additionally, we present the cumulative potential impact of the project’s new dams on population displacement and forest land. Changes in sediment due to the proposed canals are simulated using HydroTrend, a climate-driven hydrological water balance and transport model that incorporates drainage area, discharge, relief, temperature, basin-average lithology, and anthropogenic influences. Simulated river discharge is validated against current observations from the Central Water Commission of the Government of India. We also quantify changes in contributing areas for the outlets of nine major Indian rivers, showing that more than 50% of the land in India will contribute a portion of its runoff to a new outlet should the entire canal system be constructed.


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